Q: “Why does every one call the officers Sir even if they are women? I was in the military but I thought that every one knows to call female officers or presidents Mam.”

A: This was something I took from Wrath of Khan. In that film, everyone called Saavik “sir” and I liked the way it played and the implication that the honorific had become gender neutral at that point. On Next Generation, we didn’t encounter a point where a female officer had to be addressed with a “sir” or ma’am” until well into the run — an embarassing moment for the entire writing staff, by the way — and it started a fair amout of debate about which one should be used to address Troi during a crisis (I believe the episode was “Disaster”). My personal feeling was that there was something vaguely condescending about “Yes, ma’am” versus “Yes, sir” in context and that by addressing everyone as “sir” it made a point about the egalitarian nature of Starfleet. It’s certainly a debatable point, and Jeri Taylor, the executive producer running the writing staff at that point, felt very differently about it. Ultimately, we decided to go with “sir” and follow the protocol from Wrath of Khan. When I was writing the miniseries for Galactica, I decided I wanted to use sir for all the female characters and I even toyed briefly with the idea of calling Laura “Mister President” but that seemed like a step too far. Billy does call Laura “ma’am” on occasion, so the term itself does exist in the Galactica universe, but the military invariably calls her “sir.”

Caine’s absolute ruthlessness makes some sense in light of the hopeless situation they seemed to be in. Galactica had a civilian fleet to protect from the beginning; on the Pegasus, everyone was gone. For all they knew, they were the last humans left. So to take the attitude of “we’re gonna take these fuckers down with us” makes sense emotionally. Vengance will slowly erase your humanity if you feed it to the exclusion of all else. Everything else becomes expendable. Razor showed how this could happen, and to people who didn’t start out as morally depraved as they eventually became.

I agree that the relationship between Caine and Gina could have been fleshed out a lot more. I keep hearing that there will be additional scenes on the DVD, so maybe that will play a little better there.

That said – Nicole, I agree with you on the some actions are never OK bit – which is why I find my own fascination with Cain and now with Kendra Shaw to be so disturbing. The first time I watched the Pegasus arc in season 2, I was convinced that Cain was pure evil. But as I re watched it, listening to the podcasts or in despair because I want more BSG and I want it now, I found myself warming to the character. There is something about her, perhaps charisma? that fascinates me, though I still personally condemn her actions.

Now that I’m thinking about it a bit more, my reactions to Cain and Kendra, but really more Kendra than Cain, are very similar to my reactions to Starbuck. It took me a few episodes to warm to Kara Thrace, but now she’s my favorite character in the show, for many reasons. i’ll have to think on it a bit more, but I think that Kendra’s character shows resonances of aspects of Kara’s character that fascinate me and in the end make her my most favorite of all of the characters. Now I wish that Kendra hadn’t blown herself up… and DUDE Season 4 needs to get here ASAP. Harbringer of death, end of humanity, the apocalype? Kara Thrace? I’m so there.

A few more short commentaries:

- Trying to explain the time jumps to my parents, who saw the original series and have only seen an episode here or there of the reimagined series was hellishly difficult.

- I liked seeing Six/Gina impersonating a human, it’s been awhile.

- Why o why did Lee have to say the words “Black Market”? I like to pretend that episode never happened.

I agree that the movie was disjointed, but I at least it provided food for thought. There were many interesting concepts that weren’t properly fleshed out, which was the main problem with the movie.

The whole Kendra storyline was boring for me, I would have been far more intrigued by them just running with the Caine backstory and giving it more time. I think everything (especially the Helena/Gina story) was shortchanged by doing it this way.

I had also hoped that it might be “the story of the Pegasus”, allowing us to see stuff from mid Season 2 to Season 3 onwards from another perspective that might make the reveal at the end of Season 3 make more sense.

The creepy Hybrid ending was nice, of course, and plays more with the whole ‘The show is all about Freewill’ idea.

The old-school cylons were just candy fan-service to the fans, though, and I loved every minute of it. (Especially them gracing us with a “By Your Command.”)

Is anyone else continually distracted by the non-gender specific use of “Sir”? I can’t decide whether or not I like it, but it always distracts me when used for a female superior.

Yeah, I just don’t know. Isn’t that just kind of a pro-forma thing in Sci Fi? Star Trek has adopted that model from TNG onward, with the odd exception of Janeway, who in the Voyager pilot made a point of wanting to be called ma’am. *That* whole thing was one of the many many shitty points of that show, though.

I hated every inch of this movie. Sorry. It turns out I’m this awful secret moral absolutist who believes some decisions are never okay, and I don’t appreciate being told to sympathize with people who rejected their own humanity.

On the plus side, Kara’s the herald of the apocalypse and harbinger of death. Oh my god, is it March yet?

Is anyone else continually distracted by the non-gender specific use of “Sir”? I can’t decide whether or not I like it, but it always distracts me when used for a female superior.

I’ve actually heard that discussed on a commentary once. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t really notice it, but it was interesting — the creator acknowledged that there was no non-gendered or female equivalent that carries the same weight as “sir” (“ma’am” seems just slightly more condescending or matronly) so they made the choice to call everyone “sir” to keep it egalitarian. (They debated “Madam President” for the same raeson, but ultimately went with it instead of Mister.) Yeah, it’s egalitarian by adopting the male version as the default, but it’s a cultural bias most of the audience probably wouldn’t have been able to get past otherwise.

But I’m still totally going to watch it every day for the rest of the week.